


The Chip

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life, Part 3 [15]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 20:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13959348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: the discovery of something neither ever wanted to find ...





	The Chip

Christmas came and went, out of control and wildly entertaining as usual, Skinner part of the festivities this time around as well as the Gunmen, whom Maggie invited to dinner weeks before Mulder pulled her aside to ask her quietly if it would be all right if he invited them himself.

“Fox, I asked them before Halloween. Melvin is bringing the green beans, Richard the rolls and John some kind of flaming pudding that he guarantees not to set the house of fire with.”

She got a hug and a promise to do all the dishes that night.

&&&&&&&&

The day after Christmas, however, proved much different.

&&&&&&&&

He woke up on the balcony, standing barefoot in the snow, when Scully pulled open the door, “Mulder!”

Not replying, his teeth clenched too tight to move, he barely got his head turned in her direction before he felt her pulling him inside, not feeling the hands on him but sensing the movement, the stumbling, the landing on the living room floor, face bouncing against the carpet given his arms were frozen in place at his sides.

“Mulder! Mulder! Wake up! Mulder, please!!” She must have had her hands on him somewhere, rolling him over, because suddenly the room rotated, carpet exchanged for her terrified face, eyes frightened, cheeks pale, “Mulder! What’s wrong?!”

Like fighting through broken glass and hardening cement, he concentrated all his scattered thoughts, his fragmented letters into, “cold.”

It was only then that she noticed his deathly white feet, translucent hands and with lightning speed, at least to his unblinking eyes, she flew around the room, grabbing blankets, turning up the heat, back at his side in less than one sluggish beat of his heart. Alternating between rubbing toes and fingers after she layering several afghans on him, they sat in quiet, Scully not demanding and Mulder not offering until she finally noticed some color back in his appendages and his cheeks began pinking up, “you up for moving to the couch?” Holding his hand for assistance as response, she helped him stand, then move, settling beside him, “want some tea? Hot chocolate? Hot shower?”

“Tea … tea would be … good.”

It didn’t take long to make and by the time she returned, he’d burrowed into the corner of the cushions, shrinking, hiding, “let me know if it’s too hot. I can put an ice cube in it if you’d like.”

“No mention of ice cubes … please.” Giving her a look over the edge of the cup, his stuttering chatter of teeth banged the ceramic once before he put it back down, “maybe I’ll just hold it for a minute.”

With a deep sigh of fearful resignation, she asked him, breath carrying words rather than volume, “do you remember going outside?”

“If I remembered, Scully, I’d have come right back in. There’s eight inches of snow out there! I’m not an idiot.”

“Hey, hey, I never said you were.” Moving her palm to the lump under the blankets she assumed was his knee, “I just have a terrible feeling this has something to do with that chip in your neck. When that cold hit you, when you stepped into the snow, you should have woken up had you been sleepwalking but instead, you stood there for who knows how long and you probably would have stayed out there had I not found you.”

The stone heavy look he gave her froze her chest much colder than any winter could, “how did you know to come find me?”

“I had to pee.” Realizing implication, “I just … I had to pee and you weren’t in bed so when I finished, I came out to see what you were doing. I figured you were reading or watching TV.” Looking at the snow beginning to swirl against the glass door to the balcony, “I didn’t see you at first and I was about to go check the second bedroom but then, there you were.”

Not caring about spillage or breakage, he slammed the coffee mug down on the table, “fuck! This is just … fuck! … I’m tired of this God-damned ride and I want off!”

Ignoring the tea now spread across the table, she scooted closer, “we can’t take it out. We take it out and you get cancer and … well, we’re just not going to take it out so we need to come up with something else.”

“Aluminum foil collar?”

She knew even he couldn’t bounce back that quickly, “Mulder …”

“Either I joke or I scream, Scully, which would you prefer?”

Not a fan of either, she gave him a distraction, “so I didn’t tell you what arrived in the mail today.”

Still shivering, still pissed, he didn’t hear her at first but once she repeated, he stopped to think, “did we miss a Christmas gift?”

“Nope. We actually ordered it before Christmas.”

His face lit up suddenly, realizing this is exactly what he needed, “the ultrasound machine.”

“Yup. Want to take a look at our kid?”

&&&&&&&&&

Two arms, two legs, one stomach, one heart … two eyes, two ears, one liver, one brain … Pituitary, Thalamus, ten fingers, ten toes … two lungs, two kidneys, one spine, one nose …

Twenty minutes later, reclined slightly on the sofa, they both got first glimpse of their miracle baby, the size of a strawberry, the shape of one except for wee arms and fuzzy spots. They both teared up at the doppler of the baby’s heartbeat and Scully confirmed, Mulder holding the wand to her gelled up belly, the she was 99% sure there was only one kid in there and from what she could tell, it had a head.

“And you’re sure you went to medical school?”

“I slept through some of it but I got the general gist: Oxygen equals life, sex makes baby, when in doubt, Neosporin and a Bandaid can cure almost anything.”

Giving her a Mulder grin, “can we get a picture of our strawberry with a possible head on it?”

She would have swatted him had she felt like it, “well, it doesn’t have a printer but I can save it and have the Gunmen print it out.”

Making sure she had saved the shot, they stared at their blob for another minute, then shut the machine down, cleaned Scully up, then remained in the dark on the couch, “are you feeling better?”

“I’m not cold if that’s what you mean and I’m a lot calmer than I was ‘cause we got to see Berry there but that doesn’t explain anything else.” Flopping backwards, cushion cradling his bones, “why would they want to chip me now? This is the most stable, happy, non-let’s take down the government and all its conspiratorial shit that I’ve ever been. What the hell, Scully, I mean, I’m actually happy … I’m happy and you’re happy and honestly, if somebody told me right now if I quit, we could take our chips out, no consequence, I’d do it in a Goddamned heartbeat … less than actually. By the time they’d finished saying the offer, I would’ve clawed that motherfucker out of my neck and handed it to them!”

Tugging at his elbow, then shoulder, she got him to slide sideways, lay his head on her lap, “and then I could have used my Neosporin and a Band-aid knowledge.”

Mulder groaned into her thigh, “am I going to have to handcuff myself to the bed every night and have you hide the key? Do I have to have Frohike implant his own tracker on me so when I wander off next time, you can find me? Should we install an alarm that wakes the dead if I try to leave the house?” Fingers cracking as he made a fist, frustration taken out on five innocent phalanges, “what’s going to happen when I go out of town? Do I have to sleep with Skinner tethered to me?”

As she ran one hand through his hair while the other unfurled his digits, she gently reminded him that the situation wasn’t new to either of them, “I’ve been doing okay so far.”

“You nearly died on that bridge?!”

“But you found me.”

“Not quick enough though.” Studying her upside down, her eyes soft as they surveyed him chin to crown, “I can’t have you worrying about me. You don’t need any more stress. I cause enough by just existing.”

Not hearing the slightest bit of levity in his comment, she curled over him, kissing his nose, whispering to him so no one could possibly overhear, read her lips, “we will talk to the boys tomorrow about trackers for both of us.” Sitting back up, paranoia reaching unheard of levels instantly, “why don’t we just get some sleep? I’m sure you’ll feel better in the morning.”

His trusting Scully was disappearing more and more every second.


End file.
